New AVP League begins Saturday with matches at UCLA
The new AVP League has first matches Saturday
The league’s debut takes place at the Los Angeles Tennis Center at UCLA in Westwood. The opening weekend’s schedule
Saturday — New York Nitro (Taylor Sander and Taylor Crabb, Kelly Cheng and Sara Hughes) vs. Brooklyn Blaze (Cody Caldwell and Seain Cook and Megan Kraft and Terese Cannon),; LA Launch (Tim Bomgren and Troy Field and Betsi Flint and Julia Scoles) vs. San Diego Smash (Chase Budinger and Miles Evans and Geena Urango and Toni Rodriguez).
Click here for more details on the AVP website.
Sunday — Nitro vs. Launch and Blaze vs. Smash.
The new League format
Eight teams — the LA Launch, San Diego Smash, New York Nitro, Brooklyn Blaze, Palm Beach Passion, Miami Mayhem, Dallas Dream, and Austin Aces — has a men’s and a women pair and the top four overall city-based teams will compete in an end-of-season playoff to crown a champion.
Matches will be played in a best-of-three format with sets up to 15 points. Four teams will compete at each of the eight AVP League stops, with each team playing on four weekends.
Week 2 moves to the Hard Rock Tennis Center in Miami Gardens, Florida:
Saturday — Austin Aces (Paul Lotman and Billy Allen and Taryn Kloth and Kristen Nuss) vs. Dallas Dream (Miles Partain and Andy Benesh and Kylie Deberg and Hailey Harward), Palm Beach Passion (Phil Dalhausser and Avery Drost and Melissa Humana-Paredes and Brandie Wilkerson vs. Miami Mayhem (Trevor Crabb and Theo Brunner; and April Ross and Alix Klineman).
Sunday — Aces vs. Mayhem and Dream vs. Passion.
Watch the AVP League live
As the AVP finalizes new broadcast deals, the opening weekend of the AVP League will be streamed live exclusively on the free Bally Live app and BallyLive.com. For those who can’t catch the live action, matches will be archived shortly after completion on the AVP’s free YouTube channel.
Record-breaking viewership for MBO, Chicago
The men’s and women’s finals of the Manhattan Beach Open in mid-August drew an average viewership of approximately 300,000 on ION — a number that far surpasses the 144,000 average viewership for the NWSL in 2023 on ESPN2 and nearly doubles the numbers for LIV Golf on CW. Two weeks later the AVP Chicago Open finals reached about 215,000 viewers on The CW, according to Nielsen ratings.
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